It used to attract half a million visitors a year, but not so many come any more.

Actually, it's not entirely the credit crunch, and more that Liberace was of his time, and fewer people are interested:

“We really started pushing the idea of bling, and Liberace was the first person who was really doing bling,” said Jeffrey P. Koep, the chairman of the Liberace Foundation and dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. “He had the big rings. He had the look that you see the kids doing now that’s very popular.”

That's the sort of idea a grandmother would come up with - "you wear big rings, don't you, dear? Look, this man had big rings, too" - so it's not surprising it flopped.

Perhaps they should have tried going with being insanely closeted, or launching lawsuits when people simply tell the truth about you. That's quite popular these days, too. Maybe that would bring an audience.

The tumbling numbers, combined with terrible investment decisions, have brought the attraction to the last rhinestone:

Billy Vassiliadis, the head of the advertising agency that represents the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said the loss of the museum “was a shame, especially for us older folks.” But, he said, Las Vegas, like Liberace, has always been about reinventing itself.

“We have to keep refreshing Las Vegas,” he said. “Thousands of people turn 21 every day. Who knows, maybe we’ll have a Lady Gaga museum in 10 years.”

Here's what I want from you. I want to make a video comprised of 100s of photos of pianos. I want all of the photos to be sourced or 'found' and rarely staged. I want photos that already exist. The idea is that the piano photos would present a chronolgy, so we start with the oldest photo first onto the most modern. For that reason what I really want is your old family photos and even better photos of your grandparents and earlier.

A US government study has warned that the recorded music industry might be allowing its legacy to crumble into dust, Variety reports:

The 169-page white paper, subtitled "A National Legacy at Risk in the Digital Age," concludes that nothing less than congressional revision of copyright law will help alleviate the many issues facing overtaxed, underfunded, technologically inadequate institutions involved in preservation work.

The major sectors of showbiz are working to preserve iconic works (Variety, Aug. 2-8) and U.S. music labels have taken steps to ensure preservation of their catalogs, but, crucially, "It is uncertain whether master recordings are being maintained or preserved when there is no prospect for their reissue or for monetary gain from their digital distribution," according to the NRPB study.

Masters of bands that labels have concluded they can no longer make money of have been junked - don't even think about what might have happened if instead of destroying them, the labels had allowed artists to take back and do what they would with them. Don't think about what the majors might have consigned to destruction.

Funding for preservation is "decentralized and inadequate," the study says. And the problem has only grown with the steep music-industry downturn of the last decade: The study notes, for instance, that the Grammy Foundation's preservation awards totaled $441,000 in 2008 and just $150,000 in 2009.

Analog-to-digital archiving is beyond the scope of most institutions. The study takes a dim view of recordable CDs as an archival medium, noting they have "placed preservation programs at great risk."

And one of the biggest threats to preserving recordings? It's copyright law. The study suggests that if people paid attention to copyright law, virtually all attempts to preserve audio recordings would be illegal.

That does sound like a broken law. Or it does, until the sound degrades to a point.

You have to go more-or-less to the end of this clip about Tea Party events in Georgia, but there you'll see Maureen Tucker, complaining about taxes:

Is it Moe? The Maureen Tucker from the Velvets does live just an hour's drive away in Douglas, so it's her 'local' gathering of confused patriots against government spending on things they don't agree with. What are the chances of two Maureen Tuckers being in the area?

Sometimes, we point and snigger at Neil McCormick, the Telegraph's friend of Bono music writer, but he's got a point this morning, listing the churning products of the Lennon Industry:

This is the latest offering from a posthumous, multi-million-dollar Lennon industry, partly fuelled by his widow's sometimes suspect desire to keep the flame burning. It has led to such dubious tributes as a TV commercial for the Citroën DS3, a Mont Blanc fountain pen retailing at $27,000, a limited edition Gibson Imagine guitar ($10,748), alongside the usual array of Lennon-branded mugs, clothing, books, calendars, prints and even an Imagine brand of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

I suspect Neil and I would disagree over the core of his argument. Neil insists this isn't what the man himself would want, or be doing, were he alive today; my suspicion is that Lennon would just be more careful than Yoko at merchandising the idea of the rock ascetic. But the headline?

John Lennon's 70th birthday: these tacky souvenirs and adverts insult his memory

"People's reasons for making music have changed. I remember a time when people made music for the sheer joy of it. Nowadays people are just trying to make money and you can hear it. Everything sounds the same: it's shallow, hollow and thin. I take the time."

Yeah! You go, Ne-Yo - you wave your angry little fist at people who simply use their profiles as a way to fill their bank balances. They're so vulgar.

You could start with this guy:

That's a bloke called Ne-Yo who's, erm, using his music to land a plum job pushing Macy's men's trouser range.

But I'm sure you're only endorsing the trousers for the sheer joy of it. Not simply to make money.

A weekend of embedded videos which will continue with sound only, I suspect, as we dip into the career of Lois Maffeo. Lois, as she was often professionally known:

That's her first sort-of solo debut, Press Play And Record, although she'd been making excellent music for years before that came out in 1992. At the start of the 1990s, she was in Courtney Love. The band, of course, the one that makes (her ex-roommate) Courtney Love the person fume and rage about who has the rights to a made-up name.

Before that, she'd arrived in Olympia and become a one-woman radio cult with a show on KAOS; it seems like you couldn't help but be well-connected in Olympia at the time and her cross-collaborations would give Pete Frame cold sweats trying to keep track of.

She writes a mean song. This is going to be a brilliant weekend, I think, even if the 'videos' are just pictures filling the hole in the screen.

It does make it all a little strange, then, that Smart quotes Williams saying this:

"All I want to do now is throw my arms around him and give him a hug. I want to hear sorry from him, I want to say I'm sorry."

Robbie has already said sorry; in court. And he was saying sorry for making unsubstantiated claims about Martin-Smith. So how come - despite claiming "I don't want to hold any malice towards somebody from my past because that only hurts myself" - Williams is still suggesting Nigel Martin-Smith has something to apologise for?

Friday, October 01, 2010

According to the BBC, retired fireman Robert Linhart was arrested on Tuesday while spray-painting messages on the pavement to the singer asking to meet her.

One read: "M, the universe brought us together in 1992 and again this year in Prague. Meet me please."

It would be puzzlingly heartwarming were it not for the massive icepick he was carrying with him in the car.

His defence appears to be "she's Madonna" - which didn't work for Robbie Williams and probably won't work here:

His lawyer, Cheryl Bader, defended his actions telling the New York Daily News: "There was no threatening conduct. My understanding is it's not a crime to adore Madonna. If it were, the court would be a lot more crowded."

Probably not very crowded; like glue-sniffing, there was a lot of it about in the 1980s but most people now view those minor infractions as one of the silly things you do before you grow up, surely?

"The last album was a breakup album and I'm not breaking up with anybody at the moment, thank God, so this is another party album."

Another party album? Just because you don't wear a shirt doesn't make the record a party album, Johnny.

"To me it is going back more to the spirit and the energy of 'Up All Night' or the 'Somewhere Else' kind of Razorlight, which is my favourite period of the band - it's an energetic rock 'n' roll album."

I cherish that even when he's telling us how much of a party album he's making, he still sounds serious and self-important.

A tweet posted on his wall this morning read: "If you a man and your [sic] over 25 and you don't eat pu**y just kill your damn self. The world will be a better place. Lol"

Lol indeed, Mr. Cent. Gay men should commit suicide. What astonishing insight you have into the human condition. Let's get you into your carpet slippers and let you have a bit of a rest in a comfy armchair, shall we? We'll pull the curtains so nasty old real life doesn't intervene, shall we?

"The committee will ask them whether the teenagers have been compelled to wear revealing clothes and sing songs with suggestive moves and lyrics," the aide to lawmaker Ahn Hyoung-Hwan of the ruling Grand National Party told AFP.

"Some of the popular girl groups are sixth and seventh graders (aged 13-14)... we need some legal devices to protect those young performers from possible abuse."

Any suggestion that this is an excuse for South Korean parliamentarians to sit about watching teenage girls in short skirts for "research purposes" is totally wide of the mark.

He added that the number of times the DJ has been censured by the BBC or Ofcom could be "counted on the fingers of one hand, probably on two or three fingers".

"Management – ie me – are not in hock to Chris. Chris and I have a long-term relationship and he is absolutely clear where the red lines are," said Parfitt.

Given that Ofcom or the BBC getting involved at this sort of level is a pretty serious injunction, you might wonder if every presenter who got "two or three" black spots next to their name would still be indulged after a clankingly bad programme like last week's. You'd suspect not - but, hey, Andy Parfitt isn't in hock to Chris Moyles. So probably everyone gets a third or fourth or fifth or sixth chance, right?

I'm not sure why Gareth Evans was canned while Moyles is still crept around by BBC Management. (Evans posted on his own Facebook page about a minor dispute with a council, but had never mentioned it on air.)

For reasons that we're sure are well-meaning, the BBC is trying to develop a popular, mainstream, prime-time music programme for a general audience. MediaGuardian reports:

"We are working on it," [Andy] Parfitt told a Broadcasting Press Guild breakfast today, adding that it was "absolute rot" to say there was no music on BBC TV.

"It would be great if we could get a new popular music-based programme with a new format, a new kind of offer that really worked for the audience," he said.

"The work is on to try and find a format but we are not trying to relaunch or reinvent Top of the Pops. That is kind of a red herring. Should we be looking for a programme? Of course we should and we are.

"Would it be a good thing to try and persevere and work with producers to identify a new format? Yes. That's what television does all the time. Jan Younghusband is actually leading that process and I am closely involved with that."

Maybe there is such a mythical format, a world where The Ting Tings, Susan Boyle, The Cast Of Phantom Of The Opera and Sharon Corr can co-exist happily.

But you know what? I think I switched over as soon as Susan Boyle came on.

It'd be great to have a music programme - perhaps something a bit like Inside Sport, but... well, not about Sport - on BBC One. Or maybe a performance slot which does something a bit Whistle Test-y. Develop away happily.

But it's a bit like biscuits, isn't it?

You can have a Tea Time assortment, and if there's no other biscuits around, people will tuck in. But if they like jam rings, they're going to get the hump when there's only one in the box and they have to end up with rich tea fingers instead. Especially when there's an entire channel of jam rings available elsewhere.

At Christmas, it's nice to have a tin of Tea Time. And a few people will always enjoy a bit of a mix. But give most people a choice, and they'll always plump for a packet of their favourites. This isn't an era looking for something like Top Of The Pops, even if it isn't Top Of The Pops.

Hey, don't be all crying: it turns out that Barry Diller always planned to step down from LiveNation. So says, erm, still-at-LiveNation executive chairman Irving Azoff:

As usual the press reports are ridiculous. It was always Barry Diller's
intention to step down from LNE COB during first year after TM/LN
merger. I look forward to continue to work with him during his time on
the board. I thank him for the many years of dedication and loyalty to
everyone at TM.

Yes, in pretty much the same way David Miliband was always hoping to be a backbench MP, I'll bet.

Of course, Azoff needs to tell people that this was all a secret plan and not really the outcome of him and Diller falling out. Oh, but Diller has also been playing nicely as he attempts to negotiate his severance package. Sorry, confirmed the official line. Sorry, agreed that this was always the plan:

“I have always said, since the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, that I only planned to stay as chairman through the transition and integration of the two companies. It’s been almost a year and I informed the board today that while there was no rush, the board should start the process now to appoint a new chairman.”

It was always the plan. All he wanted to do was oversee the union, and then he'd leave happily. He always said he'd do that. Always. And this was exactly how he'd planned to have his departure announced. Always.

Trent Reznor is - it says here - turning Year Zero into a mini-series:

"We are in [the development phase of] pre-production with HBO and BBC to do a miniseries," Reznor told the Los Angeles Times's Hero Complex blog. "It's exciting. I probably shouldn't say too much about it except that I understand that there's a thousand hurdles before anything shows up in your TV listing. It's been an interesting and very educational process and it cleared the HBO hurdle a few months ago and now we're writing drafts back and forth. So it's very much alive and incubating at the moment."

Barry Diller - who, in his head at least, was responsible for the megalithic monoplistish LiveNation-Ticketmaster - has walked out the company in a huff and a half:

Barry Diller, the media mogul who claimed credit for the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, said Tuesday he would resign as chairman of the merged company after a boardroom power struggle with another media giant and director, John Malone, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

Diller's resignation letter was eventually accepted by the company after he had coughed up a five pound processing fee and a three quid convenience charge.

Gordon's very excited, but dollies are, sadly, something for most of the JLS to look forward to when they get a bit older and their parents don't have to worry about choking hazards. Nobody wants to hear about a child choking to death on Ortise's hat.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Repeating Islands reposts a mainstream media report confirming that the star's U.S. drug trial is the talk of Jamaica, “where islanders are debating his guilt or innocence on street corners, in offices, in letters to the editor and on social networking websites.” There is no doubt the singer has mobilised strong support from his fan base - there is even a website that has been set up to advocate for his freedom. Many conspiracy theories are floating around, including one claiming that Banton was set up by members of the international gay community as payback for his homophobic lyrics in past songs. (Banton signed a pledge a few years ago to desist from singing such songs again).

Ah, yes, that well-known international gay community and their dirty tricks squad.

The xx are now making the final preparations for their final (read: last chance to see them play for a very long time!!!) tour after which they head home for some well-deserved r&r before starting work on the follow up to xx. The band have decided rather than let the lightboxes sit in storage they will put them to good use by auctioning them off with all proceeds going to one of the band’s favorite charities Amnesty International.

They come as a set and sellers won't split, which has apparently put Exene Cervenka off bidding.

MGMT's second album wasn't quite such a till-tickling success as their debut (indeed, Target seem to be denying Congratulations ever existed and are still shelving Oracular Spectacular on their shelf for introducing new acts.)

Andrew told the [Daily Record's showbiz column] Razz: "I definitely think our music will change in the future because Congratulations is almost two years old now.

"We have some ideas and have been talking about possible directions of where to go next.

"We are just in much more positive mental states than when we wrote Congratulations.

"We're less anxious. We've been looking at relationships with the label during the recording process and it's quite different this time.

"They'll be more involved and not give us as much freedom."

I'm not sure why the Columbia imprint would decide this is the way to go. Does anyone in an office really think "the audience didn't warm to MGMT making the record last time, so what they really need is some accountants dropping a few ideas into the pot"?

Griffey had eeny-meeny-miney-moed his way into nightclub owner over medicine as a career and had quickly established an eye for talent. By the turn of the 1970s, he was booking world tours for stars of Stevie Wonder's pedigree, and it was his ear and contacts book which lead to him becoming talent booker on Soul Train.

Unencumbered by ITA-style conflict of interest worries, Soul Train spawned its own label. The imaginatively-titled Soul Train Records had some successes, most notably early Shalamar, but folded in 1977. Having helped create the label, Griffey took the leftovers and used them to found Solar (Sounds Of Los Angeles Records). Coming at the start of a mythical golden Soul-Disco age, the timing was right. Before eventually winding up as part of an EMI firesale which would see catalogue sold to Unidisc, Solar would provide a home for Shalamar, Midnight Star, Klymaxx and even the first recording featuring Snoop Doggy Dogg. It also turned out LA Reid, whose journey from musician to besuited industry paragon is a story all of its own.

Solar also counted amongst its rosta Carrie Lewis. Arguably, she was the main artist on the label; inarguably, she was the only one married to Griffey.

Dick Griffey died from complications following a multiple bypass. He was 66.

Whoopsie-daisy. ACS:Law, one of the legal firms that has done very nicely, thank you, out of pursuing unlicensed music files appears to have published thousands of pieces of personal data on the internet. Technology Guardian reports:

The website went offline after users of the online messageboard 4Chan orchestrated a sustained attack on it, putting the site offline for much of the week. A file containing the confidential information – which includes thousands of emails to and from the company – appears to have been inadvertently published on the front page of ACS:Law's website as it recovered from an attack, security experts Symantec told the Guardian. The file has since been distributed widely across the internet.

What do ACS say?

Andrew Crossley, the lead solicitor at ACS:Law who has shouldered much of the ire from compainants, this morning told the Guardian that he had contacted the information commissioner about the distribution of this confidential information, adding: "We're aware of it and unable to comment about it for legal reasons."

What those legal reasons are aren't clear - perhaps ACS:Law have taken an injunction out on themselves to prevent them suggesting that email communications with them might end up on the internet. Although they'd be aware of it happening.

You might think that they'd pop along to have a chat with a similarly stupidly punctuated PR firm for advice on whether not saying anything at all is the best approach when many of your secrets have apparently been strewn across the internet.

The suggestion that Nadine Coyle's video was "too sexy for TV" is the absolute god's honest truth, and not merely a desperate ploy to try and get people interested in Nadine Coyle's solo career.

The Irish singer flashes the flesh as she writhes around in a tiny black dress in the promo for Insatiable, but TV viewers won't be able to see the saucy scenes after the footage "failed" a standards test.

Coyle admits producers will now attempt to re-edit the video to make it suitable for TV audiences.

In a post on her Twitter.com page, the singer writes, "Crunch time on the video front, apparently it has failed a test for TV. We have to go back and re-edit or you can't see it!"

Actually, that makes it sound like the video didn't pass the test for photosensitive epilepsy, doesn't it?

There's a 6.04am publishing time on Helienne Lindvall's piece on Doctrow and Godin for PaidContent, so let's be generous and assume she was still half-asleep when she wrote it:

A friend of mine recently tried to book Seth Godin for a music industry panel and was told by his speaker agent that he charges $150,000 to come to London from his home in New York. And, like pretty much all these “gurus”, he demands a first-class round-trip flight ticket to boot. But if they let him do it via video link from his hometown it would only cost $15,000 plus expenses, said the agent.

So what kind of valuable advice would you get for that tidy sum of money? In his interview Music Vs the Music Industry (his advice applies to just about everything, he adds) – Godin says: “This is the greatest moment in the history of music if your dream is to distribute as much music as possible to as many people as possible … If your focus is on the industry part and the limos, the advances, the lawyers, polycarbonate and vinyl, it’s horrible.”

Um... yes, and? That's what the Freemium model is, Helienne. You give away content for free where it makes sense, and charge what you can when you're able. So Seth Godin makes a lot of his stuff available for free, which builds his reputation and saves him having to chase people making infinite copies online, and means he can charge a lot for the non-replicable stuff. That's his idea.

Down with Bono-bashing
Ridiculing the U2 singer only makes it harder for any band with ideals to stick their neck out

By "bashing" what Lynskey means is "asking questions about what the self-appointed chum of the powerful says and does". This, surprisingly, turns out to be a Bad Thing To Do:

He has been ridiculed for the financial struggles of his ethical clothing line, Edun, and private equity firm, Elevation Partners, his lobbying appearance at a Conservative party conference, the carbon footprint of U2's 360° tour, and even the back injury which forced the band to cancel their slot at Glastonbury. Anyone else would have to run for office to receive such relentlessly harsh scrutiny.

Whereas Bono is simply trying to shape policy and direct governments without running for office.

Lysnkey does concede that sometimes it's valid to have a pop at the pop star:

Of course, someone with Bono's profile and clout deserves to have his feet held to the fire. His manner can be off-putting, not least in his columns for the New York Times; he underestimated (or ignored) leftwing discomfort with his realpolitik charm offensive on the Bush administration, and U2's 2006 decision to move their publishing business to the Netherlands for tax reasons was a disastrous own goal which needs to be reversed. But amid the growing chorus of cynicism, he rarely gets credit for the huge efforts he has made on issues such as debt relief and Aids prevention.

So it seems there are some "good" criticisms of Bono, which DK approves of, and others, cherry-picked, which are unfair. It seems Dorian can question Bono's tax arrangements without being cynical, but other people asking other questions? That's just so rotten.

As for the cherry-picked examples of "fair" criticism, besides the pulled back before Glastonbury, aren't these fair?

The financial misfooting of Elevation and Edun, surely, is fair to be discussed - if you're seeking investment partners, shouldn't you at least be good at investing? And given that Lynskey claims to be worrying that interrogating Bono will make it more difficult for campaigning musicians to be campaigning, what has a company investing in digital media got to do with that, exactly?

Lobbying at the Tory Party conference? It was actually 'appearing in a video played at' rather than 'an appearance', and his clunky script was crying out for a bit of a brickbat.

And the carbon footprint of a corporation whose boss is supposedly an eco-campaigner not only should be scrutinised, it must be examined. Surely Lynskey isn't really suggesting that a company should be allowed to spout any sort of guff about being green while lugging a massive pile of junk around the world? Perhaps The Guardian will now be going easy of Tesco - after all, asking questions about a corporation's carbon footprint might make it unlikely that a supermarket might make reusable bags available in the future.

The anger last week about Bono's One organisation spending thousands of dollars on press packs in the name of starving kids last week? That's unfair, it turns out:

o matter that the U2 frontman is not responsible for ONE's day-to-day decision-making, nor that ONE's own website declares that it "does not provide aid directly" but is "an advocacy and campaigning organisation", nor that the source of attack was a rightwing tabloid. On sites such as Twitter, it was whoopingly greeted as yet further proof that Bono is a blowhard, a hypocrite, a fraud.

Let's not even bother with the curious suggestion that because a story was broken by a right-wing tabloid we should pretend it doesn't exist, which is such an absurd statement it would take a thin book to pull apart - hopefully pointing out that 'not providing such awful examples of muddle-headed thinking to allow the right to take attention off inequality and focus instead on the providing of cookies to starving Manhattan journalists' will do for now - and instead ponder why it is that Bono is a figurehead, founder and face of One when things are going well, but not when the organisation does something stupid?

Lynskey worries that Bono doesn't get the credit he deserves for the work he does, but here suggests that he shouldn't take the flak when it backfires. Lynskey praises Bono for working closely on his campaigns, but then thinks he shouldn't be held responsible when things go wrong.

We didn't do this to The Rolling Stones, did we, says Dorian:

But any young band with political ideals might well compare his experience with that of a band like the Rolling Stones, who moved their business to the Netherlands but without inspiring a fraction of the ire, and take the path of least resistance.

I don't recall Mick Jagger and Keith Richards popping up all over the place telling governments how to spend the taxes they were busily trying to minimise.

The line of least resistance, surely, in 'not being a tax avoiding hypocrite' would be to not avoid tax; Lynskey seems to suggest that instead his fictional young band would choose to avoid being hypocrites. He seriously doesn't seem to consider for a moment that a young band with actual political ideals might happily pay their taxes to their home government.

Bono's activism is an ongoing experiment to see how far fame can be used to lobby for progressive causes, and to what degree a musician can act on principles rather than merely voice them.

... but, erm, if people point out that his hulking stage set for his tour makes a mockery of the environmental concern he espouses, that's somehow wrong.

If he is discredited, then so is the whole endeavour.

Um... no. No, it isn't. "If Bono isn't given a free pass - except on the bits Lysnkey disagrees with - then the whole idea that artists can express their opinions lies in tatters" is just penthouse-quality rubbish.

First, anyone who wants to hold forth on matters of the day but chooses not to lest they find themselves being called to account on their views is almost certainly a person whose views are best left unheard.

Second: Lynskey seems to think that 18 year-olds in bands think of Bono as being like them, and would see him a role model and a warning. I think it's safe to say that most young bands look from Blair to Bono, and Bono to Bush, and don't really see any musician in a sense they'd recognise.

Bono is pretty much the Lennon of his generation. The fact that people rolled about laughing at the guy in the mansion house imagining no possessions, or giving away all his stuff but somehow still having the means for a deposit on rooms in the Dakota doesn't seem to have put Bono off, does it?

It's funny, the team at News International get very cross indeed when their content is lifted without any acknowledgement - as James 'there on his own merits it's just a coincidence that his surname is' Murdoch put it earlier this year:

"We need enforcement mechanisms and we need governments to play ball … There is no difference with going into a store and stealing Pringles or a handbag and taking this stuff. It's a basic condition for investment and economic growth and there should be the same level of property rights whether it's a house or a movie," he said.

"The idea that there's a new consumer class and you have to be consumer-friendly when they're stealing stuff. No. There should be the same level of sanctity as there is around property. Content is no different. They're not crazy kids. No. Punish them."

“News International makes a significant investment in journalism and we believe that it is entirely appropriate for us to ask that our rights are respected. NewsNow has acknowledged that they require our permission to use our content and, in the absence of our permission, has ceased to do so.”‬

Perhaps 79 year-old Rupert Murdoch is just "weak-minded" when quotes about sex are thrown at him.

Being compared to the better, more popular, talented one all the time? Water off a duck's back, it seems:

Minogue wrote: "Ever since I arrived in the UK in 1991, the media have pitted us against one another, first favouring my supposed 'cooler, darker' image over Kylie's bubblegum sweetness, then turning on me with a deluge of unflattering comparisons.

"Never mind that Dannii has had ten Top 10 records - Kylie has had 20! Never mind that Dannii's album has gone gold - Kylie's has gone platinum! Less success was no success at all as far as my critics were concerned. As much as it broke my heart at times, it never made me any less proud and supportive of my sister, and I received the same love and support from her.

"The truth is I never felt as if I was competing with my sister. Although I got very tired of the constant comparisons, it wasn't because I was jealous. I think all the Dannii-bashing headlines often hurt Kylie more than they hurt me."

You see, David? You're not competing with your sibling, and the comparisons are just pointless because - hey - remember, you've sold a few records yourself. And were the popular one once. Briefly. Just keep mentioning that, over and over again, with figures if you must, and nobody will ever come away with the impression that you're seething inside and wondering if you could get a fake grin actually botoxed onto your face for those times when you have to stress you couldn't really care less.